Wednesday, 11 May 2016

'Tragic Forms' by Ken Currie

Ken Currie, 'Shoulder of Lamb', oil on linen, 167 x 244cms, 2014

In my last post I shared some of my digital prints, of which
I’ve since done a couple more. Working on these, where I have been re-visiting
some of the images in the paintings to rework them with this different media,
has begun to throw up questions for me about I’m actually trying to do, or say,
with my landscape work; what’s it about and where is it going? These questions
seem to nag me more persistently when I look at these prints as a collection of
images, with the possible idea of presenting them as a book. What do they add
up to? Are they to be seen as individual images or as part of a larger,
connected sequence, which is how I tend to view things? They are obviously
connected with their motifs of trucks and roads, but at the moment I have
doubts about whether this possesses much meaningful expression of anything.

An artist I admire greatly, whose own work possesses an
ongoing and powerful dialogue with certain ideas about the human condition,
particularly about the body as a symbolic vessel, a carrier of ideas about
power and the abuses of power, and transformation, is the Scottish painter, Ken
Currie. His most recent collection of paintings, ‘Tragic Forms’, were exhibited
at the Flowers East Gallery in London earlier this year, which unfortunately I
missed seeing, but have just bought the catalogue after viewing them
online.For someone like myself, who
knows Currie’s work very well, they are, to my eyes, the most disturbing and
unsettling paintings he has made in a career of creating disturbing and unsettling
paintings.

Ken Currie, 'Ensemble', oil on linen, 214 x 305cms, 2014

Transformation of the body features heavily in them, whether
that is in the portraits of mutilated or bandaged figures, often dressed in
military attire, or the more surreal, horrific paintings of writhing flesh,
half human, half carcass. Terrifyingly ambiguous, I’m not sure whether these
figures are being born or devoured.

'Tragic Forms No.4', oil on linen, 122 x 152cms, 2014

In a really interesting
series of self-portraits, the artist wears a series of masks modelled on the well-known,
but seldom seen, drawings made by Henry Tonks of mutilated faces of soldiers
from the trenches of the First World War. These original drawings were
commissioned by the Royal College of Surgeons as they pioneered the first
attempts at plastic surgery to repair the faces of these unfortunate men: faces
with their gaping wounds, scars and cavities, which were seen as too shocking
for the wider public about the realities of modern warfare. I find it deeply
fascinating that Currie has re-visited these in his own meditations about war
and the violent transformation of flesh and bone.

He has made masks before to
work from. For his well-known commission, the ‘Three Oncologists’, a triple
portrait of leading cancer surgeons for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery,
instead of working from photographs or life of these busy doctors, who had
little time to pose, he actually persuaded them to have their faces cast in
plaster in the tradition of the ‘death mask’ and worked from these instead,
which seemed to add a poignant vulnerability to the portraits. Currie also spent time in surgery with them as
they opened up and worked inside the bodies of the sick to remove cancerous
tumours, an experience that has deeply affected the artist.

'Three Oncologists', oil on linen, 195 x 241cms, 2002

Tragic Forms’ possessed
some enormous paintings of shanks of meat realised in exquisite detail and
colour, totally convincing, but actually half imagined alongside the
observations he made from things bought at the butcher’s shop. In their large
scale they appear to wrap themselves around you. They owe a large debt to
Francis Bacon’s or Chaim Soutine’s paintings of carcasses, a debt Currie
readily acknowledges, with Bacon one of his painting heroes.

Ken Currie, 'Acteon', oil on linen, 213 x 152cms, 2014

Francis Bacon,' Three Studies For A Crucificion (right panel), oil on canvas, 1962

In fact, much of Currie’s
painting seems to be in a rich dialogue with the great European traditions in
Painting, as Bacon was with his obsessions with Velasquez. In Currie’s new
paintings references to Goya, David, Bacon, Velasquez, and most notably
Chardin’s ‘The Ray’ frequently occur.In
a link to a video interview with the artist below, he explains how his
extraordinary and strange ‘Tragic Form (Skate)’ was directly inspired by
Chardin’s masterpiece.

Ken Currie, 'Tragic Form (Skate)', oil on canvas, 244 x 304cms, 2014

Chardin 'The Ray', oil on canvas, 140 x 160cms, 1728

Yet I never feel that
Currie is trying to breathe new life into old forms as much representational
painting interested in these older traditions badly attempts: the ideas always
seem much more sophisticated and contemporary. In this video link it is also
very interesting listening to Currie talk about his methodology and techniques
for creating the paintings too from a technical, more craftsman-like,
perspective as he obsesses about subtle details such as how the figures or
forms fit in the picture frame and what a difference an inch here or there can
make. I really understood this, as I too get a bit obsessed with these details
too, which is why I make quite detailed ‘cartoons’ or preparatory drawings
where I carefully work these problems out before attempting a painting. I think
they can make or break things sometimes. In the past I used to try and get the
figures to fit the frame, now its’ all about the frame fitting the figures/lorries/heads/
motorways (delete as appropriate) and trying to work that out. It’s quite a
different thing.

Anyway, I’ve really got a lot from looking at these latest
paintings by Ken Currie. He continues to make incredibly ambitious and
challenging paintings. His ambition, skill and rigour is a quality I have always
admired. Have a listen to the video
link. It’s a fascinating insight into the motivations and experiences of this
great painter.